"Madonna appears to the dreamer in a "sensual, lacy black outfit." She stands beside a sofa upon which a naked figure lies covered by a sheet. Wordlessly, Madonna lifts the cover to reveal the dreamer's father's penis. Madonna says nothing, but it's clear from her silence that she registers just how shameful and titillating this whole experience is. Suddenly, the man's body ages, and in an instant, his genitals are withered."
"By 1993, the singer had inspired enough nightly visitations around the world that the folklorist Kay Turner compiled a whole anthology. I Dream of Madonna is both a weird relic and a fascinating record of the artist as a prism for the collective unconscious (see also The I Hate Madonna Handbook). The most common fantasies Turner recorded were of being friends with the singer, although water (which apparently has deep erotic symbolism) also snaked its way through the dream lives of her respondents."
Madonna appeared in vivid, often erotic dreams that confronted individuals with shame, desire, and symbolic transformations. Dream accounts ranged from soothing encounters to nightmarish scenarios, sometimes involving familial figures and sudden bodily changes. Folklorist Kay Turner collected many such dreams in an anthology that showed recurring motifs like friendship fantasies and water imagery with erotic symbolism. Madonna's cultural presence blurred lines between provocation and validation, allowing people to acknowledge sexual feelings without necessarily acting on them. Public reception split between condemnation of perceived depravity and admiration for expressive freedom and transgressive artistry.
Read at Pitchfork
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